A Pinay mom (and grandmom!) from Cavite and Rizal blogs on her insights & anecdotes about her Filipino family life, home, motherhood, parenting, lifestyle, health, home & fitness tips, entertainment, current issues and more...

Saturday, October 18, 2008

At three, your child's talk will be full of questions - what, where, the when coming in much later. His listening skills are also improving that listening to a story would be an enjoyable time for him. His developing sense of humor would be revealed if you try to describe improbable events or absurd combinations -ex: The dog will now eat with spoon and fork. The three-year-old may happily say swear words and toilet talk - without them understanding what the words mean and knowing full well that it would upset grownups. When Ethan was about that age, he used to hear me say "shit na malagkit" as an expression. Later, I was flabbergasted when Ethan said "shit na kit". Moral: don't talk trash if you don't want your kids to talk trash too.

Language Milestones for Three to Four Years

* Talks on the telephone* Is intelligible most of the time, to new acquaintances as to family members.* Introduces questions with such words as "where", "what" and the never ending "why".* Answers conditional questions" "If.... then what?"* Narrates a story with events placed in logical sequence.* Understands the gender contrast of pronouns such as "he", "she","him" and "her".

During this year most children develop a greater understanding of words that point out which particular object or event is being referred to - "this", "that" and "those" - also words that distinguish by location - "there" and "here".

Of course it is understood that a child develops at his own phase. When is it time to get concerned then? I will discuss that in later posts.